how to breathe
by nesshaw
Summary: If love means surviving, his life has been a struggle to live on thin air where as time moves forward, it becomes harder for him to breathe.


**for: **Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 2

**prompts: **the lyrics below, the quote below, and 'who we were'

**position: **beater 1

**a.n: **unbeta'd, i hope the mistakes are not _that _bad. also, there's a Delirium reference somewhere in this story.

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can I be? was i there?  
It felt so crystal in the air  
I still want to drown whenever you leave  
Please teach me gently how to breathe

the shelter ;; xx

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"Fear is only a verb if you let it be,"

* * *

_(i)._

The first thing about her is that she always leaves.

Sometimes, there's a message placed under an empty pack of cigarette, and the only words he can make out of lines overlapping each other beneath the sentences is _I'm sorry._There are many conditions he can think of in regards to the apology, and he wonders whether her apology for leaving is worse than the paranoia he has tried to bury deep under the pain that coats the inside his lungs like tars did to hers.

_She doesn't love him. _

_(ii)._

"I want to dance in your eyes. They look like the sky when the storm is brewing," was the first thing she said to him.

She was his enemy's little sister back then, all sunshine and happiness, looking at him with a big smile on her face. She was full of energy and life that he remembered that he was quiet for about a minute before he regained his wits. By then, she already took his silence wrongly and began blushing and quickly excused herself.

She was sorted into _Slytherin_ and he thought about what she said to him earlier in the train. Amidst the outburst of indignant and raging shouts in the Great Hall upon her sorting, she took a seat next to him. Her eyes wandered around the room before she called him with a faint voice he barely caught if he hadn't been paying attention to her.

"Let's be friends."

_(iii)._

He waits.

There's never a guarantee that she will come back. They are two lonely people trapped in a never ending spiral of bad choices and regrets, fighting against the community that wants to consume every piece of them. They are the topic of gossips, always have been, as if there was nothing more scandalous than _them._

There's an invisible chain around their house, built over years of silent understanding that passes between them, preventing him from _leaving_her.

_He loves her enough to stay._

If love means surviving, his life has been a struggle to live on thin air where as time moves forward, it becomes harder for him to breathe.

_(iv)._

He was the one who taught her how to smoke.

The fourth year was the start of her self destruction. She had made sure she had mastered the art of making people do what she wanted. He gave in, but only because he thought the cigarette inside her mouth was way better than his tongue.

She was a temptress, she knew it, and she knew he acknowledged it.

There was a triumphant smirk on her face that was quickly wiped the moment he showed her that she was still naïve. Her trembling body said no, but her eyes were determined to say yes. He didn't give in, but not for long.

_(v)._

How does he love her? Let him count the ways.

The blue of her eyes is the sky in summer when she's happy and the dark ocean when she's sad. How she always wakes him up with a soft voice and her lips are always warm. The way she laughs when there's no one but him to witness her. How she gives him the privilege to see who she really is, a girl struggling to live under the pressure of being the daughter of the Boy Who Lived, wanting nothing but a freedom. The way she looks at him like he's the only one who is able to save her.

She's the one who saved him.

_(vi)._

The more the media gave her attention, the wilder she became.

At eighteen, she broke.

He found her in The Sherlock Holmes bar, sitting on the bar stool with her hand gripping a glass of beer and the other one holding a cigarette, her red hair cascading over her shoulder. She only wore a sleeveless white blouse and jeans, but still she attracted attention.

He walked to sit next to her, drawing more attention to them, but this was a different kind of attention. They didn't know him, or her, or a secret that was kept from them.

He expected her to straighten up and tell him to mind his own business. Her temperament had always been volatile and he really didn't want to receive the end of her wand, but she looked so fragile that he decided to push his limit.

"Lily."

It took her long to reply that he started wondering if she realised he was there at all. When she spoke, her voice was soft and broken, "we are not who we were, and I wish I wasn't who I am. I'm afraid, Scorpius. I'm afraid of everything and everyone."

_(vii)._

_This world is the same like ours, Scorpius._

_Muggles are more modern from us, that's for sure. The fact that they have no idea what I am is relieving, but I still can't run from the judging eyes. _

_James and Al found me. They said that it's going to be okay, Scorpius. I don't know what they mean. They miss me, they said. They love me, they said. I don't want to believe them, but I find myself hoping that somehow there's a chance for me. Silly, isn't it? _

_If there's one thing I actually remember from all of your zen words is that anyone can overcome their fears if they choose to face it. I will try, Scorpius. I will try and make you proud. I'm so sorry for leaving you all the time. I'm sorry that I'm so selfish. _

_I lo_

He traces the large blood stain that covers the rest of her sentence if there was any at all. He looks up to the pair of sad green eyes, disbelief and grief written all over his own grey eyes.

"She was having an ice cream on the outdoor parlour when a car hit her and some of other visitors. The driver was drunk and has been sentenced by muggle laws. She was the first one to be hit. There was so much blood—" the boy who used to have smug grins whenever he pulled a prank on him weeps.

His own breathing accelerates as his mind starts to register the truth. There's no air left and he's suffocating, so please, please, _please_ let him die.

"She loved you," Potter says after there is a long silence engulfing them. "She made a point to me and James that you were the one who had always been there for her, that we had no right to claim otherwise. I thank you on behalf of my family. I'll leave now."

He only nods in reply.

_(viii)_

"If you jump, I jump," her voice was pleading, almost lost in the heavy wind that had been threatening to push him away from the concrete he was standing on. The ground was far below and he was so close to making up his mind before she came to ruin his resolution.

"I don't want to live in the world where you are not in it, Scorpius."

(_ix)  
_

Why is he still alive?

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**A.N no idea what that was. I was rushing to get something that is above 1K+. i'm sorry and thank you for reading!**


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